Computer Repairs, Computer Servicing - Computer Support in Devonport, Auckland, North Shore

Q: I was wondering if there is a life expectancy of a motherboard in a notebook? We purchased a notebook in May 2006 (1.5 years). It was a Compaq, and has only ever been used for 3-4 hours per week for email. Last week the motherboard died. As a computer repair company, do you believe this is a reasonable lifespan for a laptop? Personally I would expect a motherboard to last much longer than 1.5 years, when the machine is never put under load.

A: You should bear in mind that the typical warranty that is supplied with a laptop from new is only one year. In my experience, laptops frequently only last around 18mths to 2yrs before they need to be replaced. Of course, it always pays to buy quality, which is why I don't recommend Compaq/HP laptops. Toshiba and Sony seem to be able to do better. On the other hand, I always advise people that they will get better value out of a desktop PC, which tend to last around 4-5yrs, so I try and steer people away from laptops. They are, in effect, a 'disposable item' and it is best to think of them that way.

Q: I am having trouble with my CD Drive. It will accept CD's with files already in place but will not let me open a clean CD that I wish to transfer files onto. It just keeps telling me "please insert a disc". I have been back to shop to check I have purchased correct CD's. I have tried in vain with the troubleshoot option, but it is gobbly gook to me.

A: That sounds very much like the optical component inside the cdrom drive has failed - which is to say that it has failed and needs to be replaced. As your PC is now four years old, this is not unreasonable, so it is time to upgrade to a DVD writer then!

Q: My time clock in my laptop is playing up I am losing a few hours a day each day. Is this a virus or do you have any thoughts to correct it?

A: Every computer has a little battery inside it, referred to as a CMOS battery.
This battery maintains, amongst other things, the internal clock on the motherboard.
The internal clock on the motherboard is where the clock displaying in the bottom right hand corner of your screen gets its time from. The fact that your clock is running slow is due to the fact that the CMOS battery is running down.To fix this, you need to replace the CMOS battery - it is not a virus. To do this, you will probably need to go to a service centre for the manufacturer of your laptop - or some other such place that specialises in laptop repairs - as to put a new battery in requires dismantling the whole laptop. Oh, and as it is a laptop, the battery may be proprietary and have to be a special shape/size etc. Of course, if you leave the laptop on mains power, then the time holds.

Q: I am doing data backups of my computer onto the external drive on my desk. I have checked the wires are connected and they seem to be, and the light on the external drive is on but the backup is failing. What could be going on?

A: Plug the external hard drive in and then double click My Computer - if the device is in properly, it will show up there, lets say as Drive F. So first:
1) check the device is on
2) check the USB cable is plugged in
unless these are both true, Drive F will not be there.
If these are OK, then probably some other device has taken the drive letter F, in which case, unplug all other USB devices, including printers, remove memory cards, memory sticks as one of these may well have taken the letter F, and this will be your problem.

Q: Conventional wisdom states that the more you use your hard drive -- or, for that matter, the hotter your hard drive gets -- the more likely it is to crash. That certainly sounds plausible, but is it true?

A: The major causes of hard drive failures are:
- electrical faults burning out the integrated electronics
- physical faults causing the Head to crash onto the disc platter
- switching the computer off without shutting down properly
- dropping the hard drive (eg in a laptop)
These faults occur far more commonly than you might think - which is why it is always important to do data backups onto cdroms or dvds or other external data storage devices.

A: Right-click on the 'My Computer' icon and choose 'Properties'. On the Computer Properties General Tab page it will tell you your CPU type and speed and also how much RAM is installed, eg: AMD Athlon XP 1800, 512MB RAM then Click Start > Run and type in dxdiag

Q: How can I find out about how my computer is performing?

A: 1) In Windows 95/98/ME, click Start > Run and type in sysmon You have to add the values you want to monitor - eg: processor usage, amount of free memory - to get a graphical view of your system usage
2) In Windows 2000/XP, the easiest way to do this is to launch the Task Manager - click Start > Run and type in taskmgr The 'Performance' tab will give you a graph of CPU usage and information about your memory usage
For a more detailed view of your system performance under Windows XP, click Start > Run and type perfmon to launch the Performance Monitor. This gives a much more detailed - and highly customisable - view of system performance.

Q: I am trying to install a 20 in 1 card reader/writer so I can down load photo's onto flashcards. The specifications say OS support: Win 98SE which is my operating system. I have plugged the card reader/writer into the box and the LED indicator green light is on. It does not show on My Computer and does not seem to recognise the device, Do I need some sort of driver? How can I get it to work?

A: You will need to install the drivers for this device under Windows 98; it will not work without them. Basically, there is no native support for digital cameras in Windows 98, like there is Windows XP. There should be a cdrom that came with it when you got it, and the drivers will be on this. If not, take it back to where you got it from and either get a refund or get an equivalent device that DOES come with a cd with the device drivers!

Q: I have just bought a new mouse - an optical one with the red light beneath it - and it seems to have a mind of it's own as the cursor jumps all over the place as if it is on speed. Is it faulty & should I return it?

A: If it is a brand new mouse, it is unlikely to be faulty. I suspect you are using your new mouse on your old mouse mat? Optical mice need a smooth, non-transparent surface to work from - so do not use your old mouse mat! Older mice mats - for ball mice - are slightly stippled so the mouse ball can grip, but this causes the optical light of your new mouse to bounce all over the place! You can buy special optical mouse mats - but they usually work fine on flat, smooth desks, or otherwise, a piece of card/cardboard will do. It will be a faster mouse than your last one, so you may need to refine your hand/mouse control as well!

Q: Do you recommend leaving computer on all the time, just switching off screen at night, or is total shutdown nightly recommended (we do this at present).

A: My recommendation is that when you are not using the computer, turn it off completely, not just the monitor. In particular, always turn it off at night; and if there is an electrical storm, unplug it from the wall. Don't rely on 'surge protectors' - I have had too many people coming to me with electrical damage to their computers after power outages etc even when they have been using a surge protector

Q: What is the maximum length of a USB 2.0 cable?

A: 5 metres. However, if you cascade 5 hubs with 5m USB cables, this will allow you to connect a device 30m away.

Q: I have just got a DVD burner which I have been trying to install myself. I have removed the second CD reader and put the DVD burner inside. However the computer does not recognise it properly. Can you help?

A: From what you say here, there are two cd drives in the computer, you removed one and have put the dvdrw in. If there are two such drives, one has to be set to 'Master' and the other to 'Slave'. If you look at the end of the cd drive, there are some little pins to the left of where the 40-pin grey cable plugs in, with the inscriptions MA, SL, CS (master, slave, cable select). If there are two drives in there now, make sure one is set to Master and one is set to Slave. I suspect that you have both drives set to Master at the moment - or one on Master and one on Cable Select.
The other way you can do this is just to unplug the other cd drive and just leave the dvdrw drive in there. Make sure, of course, that each drive has power cable plugged in and that the grey 40-pin cable is in the correct way round (red stripe to the right, in the direction of where the power cable goes in).

Q: I was wondering if you would be able to help me sort out a problem with our printer. When I print colour photos (have done this on 2 separate occasions) I end up with the photo having horizontal red & blue lines across the entire photo. I just cannot fathom why. I wondered if it was because I changed some settings.

A: What you need to do is to find the 'Printer Maintenance' area of the printer - where that is depends on the model of the printer and the software used. If you can find it, run the 'Print head Cleaning utility'. In fact, run all the tools you find there whilst you are there - Head Alignment (or whatever) as well. If still a problem after this, then it is most likely that the printer cartridges need replacing - so go and buy some new cartridges.

Q: I am having some frustrating problems with my home office computer which seems to hang up totally after being on for about ten minutes - for no reason! Ctrl/alt Del does nothing. Most frustrating when I have been writing an email and it hangs.

A: Your comment: 'after 10 mins' is the clue to your problem. Right-click on the desktop & choose 'properties'. Change the screensaver to 'none'. The go to Start > Settings > Control Panel and click on 'Power Options' and adjust the power management settings to make sure all entries re monitor and hard drive say 'never'. Ensure you have also disabled 'Stand By' and 'Hibernation', if your computer supports these. One of these various settings is probably set to '10 mins' - and it is the kicking in of this that is arguing with you. So try turning all these things off and see how you go.

Q: I have to purchase the CD writer program to transfer photo's onto a CD, what is the most common program?

A: If you have a CD Writer installed in your computer, then it will have already come with software for cd-burning. The nature of cd writers is such that you have to use the software that was supplied with the device. Without the software, a cdwriter is just a cdrom drive really; it's the software that does all the work. As such, it is configured to work precisely with the device that it was supplied with - which means, also, that other cd burning software will not work with that device. So, use the software that came with the cd writer when you got it. Common cd burning software includes those by Ahead (Nero), Roxio and Adaptec (Easy CD). They all do much the same thing - but only on the cd writer they were designed for!

Q: My computer is not detecting my hard drive. How do I get into the BIOS to ensure that it is being recognised by the motherboard?

A: Assuming there is not actually any fault with the hard drive itself:
1) hit the DELETE key repeatedly as soon as you switch on the computer
2) In the BIOS, use the arrow keys to move around and use the ENTER or ESC keys to go into or out of screens
3) Go to 'Standard CMOS Setup' and move down to 'Primary master' and press ENTER - this will auto-detect the hard drive
4) Press ESC to return to the first screen and then press the F10 key and then Y to exit & restart
If it does not detect the hard drive when you do this, you may need to get the drive replaced. PS Don't change any of the other settings in the BIOS while you are there!

Q: I am having trouble starting my computer - it comes up with a message saying 'disc boot error, disc not found, insert system disc' and won't go any further. I have tried using my emergency boot floppy but still can't get it going. What's going on?

A: The Emergency Boot Disc is for booting the computer into DOS and won't actually help you here (though it can be a very useful tool at times). As is often the case, this error message is not very helpful as what it points to is a problem with the primary hard drive on which Windows resides. There can be several causes of this problem. It can be that a cable has come loose or is faulty inside the computer and it can't find the drive; or it can be that the CMOS/BIOS has 'forgotten' what the drive is, how big it is etc. These are easy to remedy. However, it can also mean that the hard drive has itself died, which is why it can't be found. In this case, Windows no longer exists -and neither does any of your data. You probably need to get a technician in.

Q: My printer is refusing to work. In the Printer Folder it says the printer is offline, but I do not understand why as the cables are plugged in etc. Can you help?

A: 'Offline' is a funny sort of neither-here-nor-there state that some (but not all) printers can go into. It kind of means 'unavailable' - even if all the cables are plugged in. If you go to printers folder (start > control panel > printers) and right click on the printer, you may see an option that says "Use Printer Offline' (or some such variant). If this has a tick against it, untick it by clicking on it. Sometimes printers have an online / offline' button on the printer itself so if it is not in the r/click menu of the printer, try there.
However, the easiest way to deal with this issue is to turn off the printer, turn off the computer; turn on the printer again and then re-start the computer. And, of course, make sure that the cable is properly connected from the printer to the computer!

Q: What should I do if my computer screen 'freezes'? I can't use the mouse to do anything, its all locked up.

A: The first thing to do is not to panic! Windows does sometimes lock up in this way, and there are several things you can do. Firstly, try and use the keyboard. In Windows 95/98/ME, hold down the CTRL and ALT keys simultaneously and then press the DEL or DELETE key. This key combination should bring up the Task Manager dialogue box and you may see a program you have been using marked as (not responding). Highlight this program and then use the TAB and ENTER keys to move to button that says 'End Task' and this will terminate the offending program. You may have to go through this routine several times - and you can terminate all the programs in this way - but leave Explorer and Systray running as these are essential for running the Windows Desktop. After you get your mouse back, you may be able to continue using Windows - but it is probably best to shutdown and restart first.

If you can't use the keyboard - because this has locked up as well - then the next thing to do is to hit the Reset Button on the outside of the computer case. Not all computers have this, notably Gateway, HP and Compaq computers do not, but if your computer does have it, it is a small little button located somewhere near the main on/off button on your computer case. It can be hard to see and you may also need a point to actually push this button in - I usually use a biro. The reset button restarts the computer in what is know as a 'Warm Boot'. You will find that you will probably have ScanDisk running after you start up again.
If you don't have a reset button, then the only course of action possible is to switch the machine off with the main on/off button. Usually, you have to hold this button in for 5-10 seconds before the computer will power down. Leave the computer off for 30secs and then restart it - this is known as a Cold Boot. Again, Scandisk will run because 'Windows was not shut down properly'. This warning tells you the solution was not ideal, but that was the only thing you could do!!

Make a note of when these 'freezes' occur. Do they always happen when you are using the same program, or when you have just been on the internet? If so, there could be a corruption in that particular software or a problem with your modem, for example. If such freezes occur only occasionally, say less than once a week, don't worry about it too much. But if it happens more often than that, then your computer needs a servicing and a sorting out.

Q: I am having a problem with my monitor and wondered if you could shed any light on what might be causing it. When left on for some time the colour fades and writing becomes hard to read.

A: Sounds like your monitor is on its way out. If it is still under warranty (usually 2-3yrs), contact the manufacturer or your supplier and get them to replace it. If it is much older than that, then get a new monitor. You can pick up second hand monitors for around $50-$100 or you can get a new 17" monitor for around $240 +gst.

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	Help with your Hardware Q: I was wondering if there is a life expectancy of a motherboard in a notebook? We purchased a notebook in May 2006 (1.5 years). It was a Compaq, and has only ever been used for 3-4 hours per week for email. Last week the motherboard died. As a computer repair company, do you believe this is a reasonable lifespan for a laptop? Personally I would expect a motherboard to last much longer than 1.5 years, when the machine is never put under load. A: You should bear in mind that the typical warranty that is supplied with a laptop from new is only one year. In my experience, laptops frequently only last around 18mths to 2yrs before they need to be replaced. Of course, it always pays to buy quality, which is why I don't recommend Compaq/HP laptops. Toshiba and Sony seem to be able to do better. On the other hand, I always advise people that they will get better value out of a desktop PC, which tend to last around 4-5yrs, so I try and steer people away from laptops. They are, in effect, a 'disposable item' and it is best to think of them that way. Q: I am having trouble with my CD Drive. It will accept CD's with files already in place but will not let me open a clean CD that I wish to transfer files onto. It just keeps telling me "please insert a disc". I have been back to shop to check I have purchased correct CD's. I have tried in vain with the troubleshoot option, but it is gobbly gook to me. A: That sounds very much like the optical component inside the cdrom drive has failed - which is to say that it has failed and needs to be replaced. As your PC is now four years old, this is not unreasonable, so it is time to upgrade to a DVD writer then! Q: My time clock in my laptop is playing up I am losing a few hours a day each day. Is this a virus or do you have any thoughts to correct it? A: Every computer has a little battery inside it, referred to as a CMOS battery. This battery maintains, amongst other things, the internal clock on the motherboard. The internal clock on the motherboard is where the clock displaying in the bottom right hand corner of your screen gets its time from. The fact that your clock is running slow is due to the fact that the CMOS battery is running down.To fix this, you need to replace the CMOS battery - it is not a virus. To do this, you will probably need to go to a service centre for the manufacturer of your laptop - or some other such place that specialises in laptop repairs - as to put a new battery in requires dismantling the whole laptop. Oh, and as it is a laptop, the battery may be proprietary and have to be a special shape/size etc. Of course, if you leave the laptop on mains power, then the time holds. Q: I am doing data backups of my computer onto the external drive on my desk. I have checked the wires are connected and they seem to be, and the light on the external drive is on but the backup is failing. What could be going on? A: Plug the external hard drive in and then double click My Computer - if the device is in properly, it will show up there, lets say as Drive F. So first: 1) check the device is on 2) check the USB cable is plugged in unless these are both true, Drive F will not be there. If these are OK, then probably some other device has taken the drive letter F, in which case, unplug all other USB devices, including printers, remove memory cards, memory sticks as one of these may well have taken the letter F, and this will be your problem. Q: Conventional wisdom states that the more you use your hard drive -- or, for that matter, the hotter your hard drive gets -- the more likely it is to crash. That certainly sounds plausible, but is it true? A: The major causes of hard drive failures are: - electrical faults burning out the integrated electronics - physical faults causing the Head to crash onto the disc platter - switching the computer off without shutting down properly - dropping the hard drive (eg in a laptop) These faults occur far more commonly than you might think - which is why it is always important to do data backups onto cdroms or dvds or other external data storage devices. Q: How do I find out what my processor speed is and how much RAM I have? A: Right-click on the 'My Computer' icon and choose 'Properties'. On the Computer Properties General Tab page it will tell you your CPU type and speed and also how much RAM is installed, eg: AMD Athlon XP 1800, 512MB RAM then Click Start > Run and type in dxdiag Q: How do I find out detailed information about my computer and what is in it? A: Click Start > Run and type in msinfo32 This launches the System Information tool which gives a very detailed analysis of the hardware inside your computer - and the software installed as well! It can tell you which version of Internet Explorer is installed as well as the make & specification of your sound card and graphics card - as well as CPU speed, quantity of RAM and version of Windows. If you are using Windows XP, you can also click Start > Run and type in helpctr which launches the Windows XP Help Centre. Using the Tools provided here, this also has a section entitled 'My Computer Information' which gives a very detailed breakdown of everything on your computer Q: How can I find out what hardware is installed in my computer? A: 1) In Windows 95/98/ME, right-click on the 'My Computer' icon and choose 'Properties'. The second tab along is 'Device Manager' which lists all the hardware installed. Click on the little + signs to see the actual hardware and then right-click on the item and choose 'properties' to find out more about each particular one. 2) In Windows 2000/XP, click Start > Run and type in devmgmt.msc Again, click on the little + signs to see the actual hardware and then right-click on the item and choose 'properties' to find out more about each particular one. 3) To run some diagnostic tests on your hardware, click Start > Run and type in dxdiag, particularly good for testing your sound card and graphics card functions Q: How can I find out about how my computer is performing? A: 1) In Windows 95/98/ME, click Start > Run and type in sysmon You have to add the values you want to monitor - eg: processor usage, amount of free memory - to get a graphical view of your system usage 2) In Windows 2000/XP, the easiest way to do this is to launch the Task Manager - click Start > Run and type in taskmgr The 'Performance' tab will give you a graph of CPU usage and information about your memory usage For a more detailed view of your system performance under Windows XP, click Start > Run and type perfmon to launch the Performance Monitor. This gives a much more detailed - and highly customisable - view of system performance. Q: I am trying to install a 20 in 1 card reader/writer so I can down load photo's onto flashcards. The specifications say OS support: Win 98SE which is my operating system. I have plugged the card reader/writer into the box and the LED indicator green light is on. It does not show on My Computer and does not seem to recognise the device, Do I need some sort of driver? How can I get it to work? A: You will need to install the drivers for this device under Windows 98; it will not work without them. Basically, there is no native support for digital cameras in Windows 98, like there is Windows XP. There should be a cdrom that came with it when you got it, and the drivers will be on this. If not, take it back to where you got it from and either get a refund or get an equivalent device that DOES come with a cd with the device drivers! Q: I have just bought a new mouse - an optical one with the red light beneath it - and it seems to have a mind of it's own as the cursor jumps all over the place as if it is on speed. Is it faulty & should I return it? A: If it is a brand new mouse, it is unlikely to be faulty. I suspect you are using your new mouse on your old mouse mat? Optical mice need a smooth, non-transparent surface to work from - so do not use your old mouse mat! Older mice mats - for ball mice - are slightly stippled so the mouse ball can grip, but this causes the optical light of your new mouse to bounce all over the place! You can buy special optical mouse mats - but they usually work fine on flat, smooth desks, or otherwise, a piece of card/cardboard will do. It will be a faster mouse than your last one, so you may need to refine your hand/mouse control as well! Q: Do you recommend leaving computer on all the time, just switching off screen at night, or is total shutdown nightly recommended (we do this at present). A: My recommendation is that when you are not using the computer, turn it off completely, not just the monitor. In particular, always turn it off at night; and if there is an electrical storm, unplug it from the wall. Don't rely on 'surge protectors' - I have had too many people coming to me with electrical damage to their computers after power outages etc even when they have been using a surge protector Q: What is the maximum length of a USB 2.0 cable? A: 5 metres. However, if you cascade 5 hubs with 5m USB cables, this will allow you to connect a device 30m away. Q: I have just got a DVD burner which I have been trying to install myself. I have removed the second CD reader and put the DVD burner inside. However the computer does not recognise it properly. Can you help? A: From what you say here, there are two cd drives in the computer, you removed one and have put the dvdrw in. If there are two such drives, one has to be set to 'Master' and the other to 'Slave'. If you look at the end of the cd drive, there are some little pins to the left of where the 40-pin grey cable plugs in, with the inscriptions MA, SL, CS (master, slave, cable select). If there are two drives in there now, make sure one is set to Master and one is set to Slave. I suspect that you have both drives set to Master at the moment - or one on Master and one on Cable Select. The other way you can do this is just to unplug the other cd drive and just leave the dvdrw drive in there. Make sure, of course, that each drive has power cable plugged in and that the grey 40-pin cable is in the correct way round (red stripe to the right, in the direction of where the power cable goes in). Q: I was wondering if you would be able to help me sort out a problem with our printer. When I print colour photos (have done this on 2 separate occasions) I end up with the photo having horizontal red & blue lines across the entire photo. I just cannot fathom why. I wondered if it was because I changed some settings. A: What you need to do is to find the 'Printer Maintenance' area of the printer - where that is depends on the model of the printer and the software used. If you can find it, run the 'Print head Cleaning utility'. In fact, run all the tools you find there whilst you are there - Head Alignment (or whatever) as well. If still a problem after this, then it is most likely that the printer cartridges need replacing - so go and buy some new cartridges. Q: I am having some frustrating problems with my home office computer which seems to hang up totally after being on for about ten minutes - for no reason! Ctrl/alt Del does nothing. Most frustrating when I have been writing an email and it hangs. A: Your comment: 'after 10 mins' is the clue to your problem. Right-click on the desktop & choose 'properties'. Change the screensaver to 'none'. The go to Start > Settings > Control Panel and click on 'Power Options' and adjust the power management settings to make sure all entries re monitor and hard drive say 'never'. Ensure you have also disabled 'Stand By' and 'Hibernation', if your computer supports these. One of these various settings is probably set to '10 mins' - and it is the kicking in of this that is arguing with you. So try turning all these things off and see how you go. Q: I have to purchase the CD writer program to transfer photo's onto a CD, what is the most common program? A: If you have a CD Writer installed in your computer, then it will have already come with software for cd-burning. The nature of cd writers is such that you have to use the software that was supplied with the device. Without the software, a cdwriter is just a cdrom drive really; it's the software that does all the work. As such, it is configured to work precisely with the device that it was supplied with - which means, also, that other cd burning software will not work with that device. So, use the software that came with the cd writer when you got it. Common cd burning software includes those by Ahead (Nero), Roxio and Adaptec (Easy CD). They all do much the same thing - but only on the cd writer they were designed for! Q: My computer is not detecting my hard drive. How do I get into the BIOS to ensure that it is being recognised by the motherboard? A: Assuming there is not actually any fault with the hard drive itself: 1) hit the DELETE key repeatedly as soon as you switch on the computer 2) In the BIOS, use the arrow keys to move around and use the ENTER or ESC keys to go into or out of screens 3) Go to 'Standard CMOS Setup' and move down to 'Primary master' and press ENTER - this will auto-detect the hard drive 4) Press ESC to return to the first screen and then press the F10 key and then Y to exit & restart If it does not detect the hard drive when you do this, you may need to get the drive replaced. PS Don't change any of the other settings in the BIOS while you are there! Q: I am having trouble starting my computer - it comes up with a message saying 'disc boot error, disc not found, insert system disc' and won't go any further. I have tried using my emergency boot floppy but still can't get it going. What's going on? A: The Emergency Boot Disc is for booting the computer into DOS and won't actually help you here (though it can be a very useful tool at times). As is often the case, this error message is not very helpful as what it points to is a problem with the primary hard drive on which Windows resides. There can be several causes of this problem. It can be that a cable has come loose or is faulty inside the computer and it can't find the drive; or it can be that the CMOS/BIOS has 'forgotten' what the drive is, how big it is etc. These are easy to remedy. However, it can also mean that the hard drive has itself died, which is why it can't be found. In this case, Windows no longer exists -and neither does any of your data. You probably need to get a technician in. Q: My printer is refusing to work. In the Printer Folder it says the printer is offline, but I do not understand why as the cables are plugged in etc. Can you help? A: 'Offline' is a funny sort of neither-here-nor-there state that some (but not all) printers can go into. It kind of means 'unavailable' - even if all the cables are plugged in. If you go to printers folder (start > control panel > printers) and right click on the printer, you may see an option that says "Use Printer Offline' (or some such variant). If this has a tick against it, untick it by clicking on it. Sometimes printers have an online / offline' button on the printer itself so if it is not in the r/click menu of the printer, try there. However, the easiest way to deal with this issue is to turn off the printer, turn off the computer; turn on the printer again and then re-start the computer. And, of course, make sure that the cable is properly connected from the printer to the computer! Q: What should I do if my computer screen 'freezes'? I can't use the mouse to do anything, its all locked up. A: The first thing to do is not to panic! Windows does sometimes lock up in this way, and there are several things you can do. Firstly, try and use the keyboard. In Windows 95/98/ME, hold down the CTRL and ALT keys simultaneously and then press the DEL or DELETE key. This key combination should bring up the Task Manager dialogue box and you may see a program you have been using marked as (not responding). Highlight this program and then use the TAB and ENTER keys to move to button that says 'End Task' and this will terminate the offending program. You may have to go through this routine several times - and you can terminate all the programs in this way - but leave Explorer and Systray running as these are essential for running the Windows Desktop. After you get your mouse back, you may be able to continue using Windows - but it is probably best to shutdown and restart first. If you can't use the keyboard - because this has locked up as well - then the next thing to do is to hit the Reset Button on the outside of the computer case. Not all computers have this, notably Gateway, HP and Compaq computers do not, but if your computer does have it, it is a small little button located somewhere near the main on/off button on your computer case. It can be hard to see and you may also need a point to actually push this button in - I usually use a biro. The reset button restarts the computer in what is know as a 'Warm Boot'. You will find that you will probably have ScanDisk running after you start up again. If you don't have a reset button, then the only course of action possible is to switch the machine off with the main on/off button. Usually, you have to hold this button in for 5-10 seconds before the computer will power down. Leave the computer off for 30secs and then restart it - this is known as a Cold Boot. Again, Scandisk will run because 'Windows was not shut down properly'. This warning tells you the solution was not ideal, but that was the only thing you could do!! Make a note of when these 'freezes' occur. Do they always happen when you are using the same program, or when you have just been on the internet? If so, there could be a corruption in that particular software or a problem with your modem, for example. If such freezes occur only occasionally, say less than once a week, don't worry about it too much. But if it happens more often than that, then your computer needs a servicing and a sorting out. Q: I am having a problem with my monitor and wondered if you could shed any light on what might be causing it. When left on for some time the colour fades and writing becomes hard to read. A: Sounds like your monitor is on its way out. If it is still under warranty (usually 2-3yrs), contact the manufacturer or your supplier and get them to replace it. If it is much older than that, then get a new monitor. You can pick up second hand monitors for around $50-$100 or you can get a new 17" monitor for around $240 +gst.

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